Wanying Zhang
Social and emotional learning (SEL) has moved to the center of education policy. In 2014, OECD education ministers agreed that personal development includes cognitive and social emotional competence. In 2015, all UN member states endorsed inclusive, equitable and quality education in the 2030 Agenda. In 2021, the OECD published its first international survey of social and emotional skills.
The ‘Social and Emotional Learning and School Management Improvement’ project (hereinafter referred to as the ‘SEL project’), led by Professor Mao at Beijing Normal University, has run three cycles—2011–15, 2016–20, and 2021–25—across nine provinces, autonomous regions, and municipalities in eastern, central and western China. I joined the team in 2019. We recently published our findings.1 Three things stand out for anyone considering similar work.
Where it began, and who it was for
The SEL project began in 2011 as a collaboration between China’s Ministry of Education and UNICEF and was launched in the context of China’s push for well-rounded education. It aims to promote children’s holistic development by building supportive environments through school management, teaching and learning, and home-school cooperation. These efforts foster an atmosphere of mutual respect, understanding, and support within and beyond school; help students develop the awareness, knowledge, and skills to understand and manage themselves, others and the collective; and cultivate confidence, responsibility, positive relationships, sound emotional and moral qualities, and the ability to face challenges and achieve comprehensive physical and mental development. It first piloted in five western provinces and municipalities. Most were national poverty-alleviation counties with high proportions of ethnic minority, left-behind, and boarding students. Each county selected 50 elementary schools, giving 250 project schools, nearly 140,000 students, close to 1,000 principals and administrators, and over 3,000 teachers. In 2016, the project extended to 11 counties in eastern, central, and western China, covering 275 elementary schools and, with the original pilots, now reached over 500 schools and 200,000 students.
Who was it for? It was designed first for children in rural and disadvantaged communities—especially left-behind children and boarders—and for the principals and teachers who support them. Schools were selected through voluntary application and mutual selection, with priority given to weaker rural schools. The aim was not to showcase schools but to test whether SEL could take root where support was thinnest: in schools with the fewest resources, the weakest teaching capacity, and the least institutional backing. Specifically, it asked whether SEL could become part of everyday school life, build local capacity, and sustain itself over time—and thereby prove whether it is a universally viable approach to education.
Six dimensions, not five
Our SEL model builds on the five dimensions of the CASEL framework and extends beyond them. CASEL’s framework names self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, relationship skills, and responsible decision-making. These dimensions focus only on the relationship between the individual and the self, and between the individual and others. But in Chinese culture the collective carries moral responsibility rather than merely providing company: social obligation is transmitted through it. So we added the relationship between the individual and the collective, divided into two dimensions: collective-awareness and collective-management. This formed six dimensions: self-awareness, self-management, other-awareness, other-management, collective-awareness, and collective-management.
This is not a translation problem to be solved at the end. It is a theoretical choice made at the start. From ‘cultivating oneself, managing one’s family, governing the country and bringing peace to the world’ in Confucian tradition to current goals that move from ‘loving the collective’ to ‘loving society’ and ‘loving the country,’ the collective dimension is already present in Chinese education. We made it explicit.
What I would tell a school starting today
Over the 14 years since the project’s launch, we have focused on whole-school change rather than treating SEL as a standalone lesson. Implementation across these six areas has been accompanied by meaningful improvements in students’ social and emotional competence in project schools. This experience shapes what I would tell a school starting today: do not treat SEL as an isolated subject or a one-off activity. Instead, pursue whole-school change across six interconnected areas:
(1) Comprehensive reform planning for social-emotional learning management: This is the first step of change. It requires integrating SEL into the school’s development plan. Only in this way can each element be effectively implemented, with continuous evaluation and feedback throughout the process.
(2) Building the capacity of teachers and principals: The social and emotional competence of principals and teachers is crucial to the development of students’ social and emotional competence.
(3) Developing a school-based social-emotional learning curriculum: SEL needs to be carried out in light of local conditions. Each school should develop its own school-based curriculum based on students’ development, local folk culture, and other conditions.
(4) Integrating social-emotional learning into disciplinary teaching: In terms of teaching methods, guide students to experience and appreciate the power of positive emotions, and encourage their thinking process by providing scenarios that generate cognitive conflicts, thereby fostering the development of students’ social and emotional competence through conflict resolution and stimulating their active improvement and optimization of cognitive structures.
(5) Constructing a positive, open, and inclusive school atmosphere: A positive school climate includes a material environment that is safe and gives a sense of belonging, a learning environment that motivates participation, an interpersonal environment of trust and harmony, an emotional environment of self-confidence and respect, and an external environment of cooperation and communication.
(6) Building an accepting and respectful home–school partnership: Schools should actively establish communication with parents, communicate and share information regarding students’ social and emotional competence development in school, and actively seek parents’ understanding of their children’s performance at home. These efforts aim to help parents feel accepted and respected, promote parental involvement in their children’s education, and jointly strive to achieve comprehensive student development.
1Mao, Y., and Zhang, W. (2026). Empowering Students Through Social and Emotional Learning: A Decade of Experience in China. In: A. Benavot et al., Transversal Competencies in Asian Countries and Beyond. Education Innovation Series. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-95-5238-2_12
Wanying Zhang (wanying@bnu.edu.cn) is a researcher at the Faculty of Education, Beijing Normal University, China. Her research focuses on students’ social and emotional learning, educational leadership, and school management reform.
